


show me the places where the others gave you scars

by anneweaver



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Wound Cleaning, sam and bucky's feelings of inadequacy, sam wilson's shameless flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29281041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneweaver/pseuds/anneweaver
Summary: It isn’t until they make it back to the safe house that Bucky realizes Sam is limping.Or, Bucky cleaning Sam's wound.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson
Comments: 20
Kudos: 247





	show me the places where the others gave you scars

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Taylor Swift's willow
> 
> Warning for a brief description of a minor but big wound.

It isn’t until they make it back to the safe house that Bucky realizes Sam is limping.

Their mission was disaster after disaster after disaster, and though they’d both miraculously made it out alive, it wasn’t without a lot of sniping at each other and blank stares at the wall during the flight back. So, yeah, Bucky hadn’t realized Sam was limping, as he’d made a point to not look at him to keep from yelling, a herculean effort that he hopes Dr. Baker will be proud of.

Still, they have barely walked past the front door when Bucky notices that Sam is not putting weight on his right leg. Once he notices, Sam doesn’t even make it two steps from the doorway before Bucky, annoyed as he is with him, stops him with one gentle, non-metallic hand on his shoulder and says “Zemo got to you, didn’t he?” before looking down, one eyebrow raised.

“Looking at my dick, Barnes?” Sam says, and the only reason Bucky doesn’t shove him in response is because he’s clearly in pain, given the way his voice quivers at the end.

“Your leg, smartass,” he replies, and when Sam tries to shrug off his grip, Bucky just tightens his grip. “Nuh-uh, you’re not going anywhere, you’re bleeding. Sit down, let me get the first aid kit.”

Sam huffs. “I don’t need a nurse,” he tries, and then takes one step with his bad leg and grimaces. “Fine, maybe I need a nurse. I can be my own nurse. Go to sleep, it’s been a long day.”

“Not a damn chance in hell, sit down and take your pants off,” Bucky just says, and this time he finally shoves him just enough to make him lose his balance and land ass-first on the beige couch in the spotless living room, ignoring the faint “you could at least buy me dinner first” as he walks away.

When he finally finds the fairly basic first-aid kit hidden in one of the kitchen cupboards, he returns to the living room only to find Sam, pants still on, arms crossed.

“What did I say, Wilson,” Bucky growls. “Just let me stitch you up and we can all go to bed and pretend this day never happened.”

“I’m telling you, man, it’s nothing, just hand me that kit and go, I can take care of it,” Sam says, almost too quickly, and, yeah, Bucky knows  _ that _ specific tone. It’s the  _ I-am-Captain-fuckin’-America-I-don’t-need-any-help-thank-you-very-much _ tone that he brings out whenever a mission that he assumes Steve would’ve pulled off goes wrong. 

All of a sudden, Bucky is no longer annoyed.

“I know you can, Sam,” he says, gentler now, sitting down next to the pile of pouting that’s Sam Wilson right now and nudging his shoulder, “I’m just saying that you don’t  _ have _ to. Let me take care of it.”

“You know, maybe I do have to,” Sam snaps, and, yes, there  _ it  _ is, “I bet Steve took care of all his wounds, didn’t he? Or maybe he just didn’t get injured in battle, huh?”

And now Bucky is very,  _ very _ close to being annoyed again.

“I’ll let you vent but you know that’s a blatant lie. Now stop being such a baby and take your damn pants off.”

Sam finally sighs, unbuckling his belt, tugging the zipper down and stripping the pants off, leaving him in nothing but his plain black boxer-briefs, revealing a pretty wide graze gunshot wound, actively but not profusely bleeding, a few inches above his knee. 

Bucky slides off the couch and sits on the floor, his line of vision closer to the wound, and opens the first-aid kit. He rummages around for some gloves, Betadine, surgical tape and anything that could serve as a makeshift dressing. Luckily, he finds sterile gauze, and unluckily, he does not find suture materials. He’s aware that safe houses barely even keep surgical tape in most cases, but he’s still disappointed.

He takes a closer look at the wound and sees just how deep it is, enough to have a little tear on the fascia, and he grimaces. 

“Well, since we got no sutures, this one’s going to scar pretty badly,” he says, opening up one of the gauze packages and dousing it with iodopovidone, then pressing it to the edges of the wound as softly as he can get away with.

“Ooh, do you find scars attractive, Mr. Barnes?” Sam teases, making Bucky press the damp gauze to his wound harsher than necessary. “Ouch, dude, stop, I get it, stop flirting with the nurse, I’m sorry.”

“You almost got your leg blown up, Wilson, will you be serious for one second?” He snaps, throwing the dirty gauze away with more force than necessary. He’s surprised by the sudden change in mood, tries to  _ look inside himself and identify his feelings _ , the way Dr. Baker tries to get them both to do during every therapy session, and then gets interrupted by Sam’s soft voice.

“This wasn’t your fault either, Buck,” he mutters, making Bucky look up at Sam, who’s leaning forward to inspect both the wound and Bucky more closely.

That’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it? Sam’s unrealistic need to be the Captain America that Steve was, to be worthy of the shield, and Bucky’s equally unrealistic need to keep Captain America in check, at least enough so that he doesn’t go and get himself killed.

He could probably go down every single item on Sam’s “why I’m not worthy of the shield” list and argue against every single one of them, and that’s probably why Sam gets mad at him whenever he sees him at one of his vulnerable moments: he’s not supposed to be vulnerable at all. It’s just that Sam forgets that he has seen Steve at every single of his vulnerable moments too, and he wasn’t a worse Captain America for it; if anything, he was a better person, and a better hero. But Sam’s been a sidekick for too long—his own term, something that Bucky’s never agreed with— and he’s not used to being in the spotlight, he’s placed too much pressure on himself to be a  _ hero _ that he forgot that heroes are human too. And sometimes they get wounded in battle, and they need someone to stitch them up.

But Bucky? Deep down, he’s still that guy in Brooklyn, trying to keep his skinny best friend with a death wish away from mortal peril; even when said friend became bigger than him, and bigger than life, he was still trying to protect him. 

At one point, he even tried to protect Steve from himself. 

But now Steve wasn’t around, and he’d left the shield to the most worthy person Bucky could think of, and had told him before he left on his trip to the past to make sure Sam was okay. So, yeah, Bucky took that seriously. And it aggravated him that Sam’s self-esteem issues made him reckless, and prone to injuries, because every single time that Sam’s pride got hurt it was as a result of something that Bucky didn’t do.

He didn’t notice Sam got shot. He didn’t notice until  _ hours _ after the fact. So forgive him if he feels a little guilty.

When he’s done cleaning the wound, he grabs a piece of gauze and hands it to Sam, mutters “will you press on it?” then takes the surgical tape and starts cutting off little pieces of it and twisting them in the middle, silently, not meeting Sam’s gaze.

Sam, one hand on his wound, places his other hand on the side of Bucky’s head, tips of his fingers lightly touching his scalp.

“Hey, I’m serious. Zemo’s just an unusually good marksman, you couldn’t have noticed,” he says, running his hand down Bucky’s face and placing his fingers on his chin, tilting his head up to force him to meet Sam’s gaze. “Listen, I will kill you if you mention this in therapy, but if I can’t go hauling the inferiority complex around, you can’t feel responsible for me either. We both make choices in battle, Buck. We gotta own up to ‘em.”

Bucky sighs.

“I can see your muscle, Sam,” he replies. “Where was I when you got shot?”

“I have no idea,” Sam shrugs. “I can’t even tell you  _ when _ I got shot, in fact I can’t even be sure it  _ was  _ Zemo. Shit just happens, okay? Plus, what would you have done? Jump in front of the bullet for me?”

“Maybe,” Bucky mutters, looking down at the butterfly stitches again and getting back to work. Sam huffs, but doesn’t reply, instead focuses on the way Bucky painstakingly places each stitch, one by one, over Sam’s wound, gradually closing it until it’s at least not a gaping, bleeding hole, his touch feather-light and tender over Sam’s skin, so soft that Sam almost asks if he’s going to kiss it better afterwards, but doesn’t. Instead, he watches Bucky work, focusing on his hands and the small frown on his face when he can’t quite get the edges of his skin to close.

Finally, Bucky dresses the wound with a piece of gauze and more surgical tape, his hand hovers over the wound a second too long as he looks up at Sam, whose voice is rougher than expected when he asks “Am I going to live, nurse?” 

And then Bucky rolls his eyes and gently shoves Sam’s good knee, a smile still on his lips.

Bucky holds his hand out for Sam to grab as support, and when Sam doesn’t hesitate to take it, he knows they’re going to be okay.

(Until Sam smirks, and asks “so I can’t flirt with the nurse yet?”, and Bucky is tempted to leave him stranded in the living room.

But yeah, they’re going to be okay.)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: no way in hell would a graze GSW wide/deep enough to tear up a little bit of fascia would hold together by a bit of butterfly stitching and sexual tension. Please go see a doctor and get real stitches if this happens to you (which, hopefully it won't!)
> 
> If Sam and Bucky don't have some sexual wound cleaning in TFATWS I will burn down Marvel Studios. Be warned.
> 
> Thanks to Madeline and Lucia for their late night beta reading.
> 
> Please wear a mask.


End file.
